Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA)

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Germany and Israel: Between Obligation, Taboo, and Resentment

September 25, 2006 | Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld

Gerhard Schröder, too young to be part of Nazi Germany, was the first German chancellor who did not seem to labor under the historical cloud that preoccupied all his predecessors from Konrad Adenauer to Helmut Kohl. Its three components were: inherited guilt feelings toward the Jews, a sense of moral obligation toward Israel, and, especially under Adenauer in the early days of the Federal Republic, the sense that it was good realpolitik to be on the side of the young Jewish state.